while I was in the South recently I had
a big old country breakfast with the big
bowl of hominy grits now I know what
grits are and I really love them it was
this whole hominy thing that was very
new to me so I thought we'd check it out
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food jobs comm so I did some research on
hominy and found out a few things first
of all hominy is a type of preparation
of corn that's really popular in
southern american zine and in mexico it
is not a different type of corn it is
traditional corn but it's so big and
puffy and swollen because of this
process that it goes through called
nixtamalization that was invented 2000
bc the process of nixtamalization is
ancient and it was really really
important for the survival of people in
Mexico now what happens is they take
corn kernels and they heat it up in a
solution of lime the stone not the fruit
and ash I think it's cooked in that for
a while until the pericarp which is the
outer covering of the corn kernel pops
off once this happens the inner fruit of
the corn is much easier to digest much
easier to grind and it also releases a
very vital nutrient called b3 I just
want to emphasize how important
nixtamalization and b3 is there are huge
populations throughout the world that
also depended on corn but didn't know
about nixtamalization specifically huge
communities in Africa that died off
because of diseases associated with a
deficiency of b3 in the body so it's
very safe to say that we wouldn't have
the Mexican culture alive today and all
of the developments that they brought to
the world
if they didn't know about this
technology in this process called
nixtamalization
now how many is a staple ingredient in
so much of Mexican and southern American
cuisine it's the foundation for
tortillas it's really in so much more
anytime that there's corn flour it could
potentially be made out of hominy one
particular dish called pozole which is
also another name for hominy really
emphasizes the corn kernels and it's
basically a stew and it can have beef in
it it can have pork or can have chicken
of course I went with pork first put a
little oil in the bottom of the pan and
browned up three pounds of cubed pork
that you've seasoned with salt and
pepper
once it's brown add a sliced chopped
onion and a teaspoon of minced garlic
let this caramelize now add one chopped
up chipotle pepper and a teaspoon of
adobo sauce two tablespoons of chili
powder a tablespoon of ground cumin and
a few sprigs of oregano cook this for a
few moments then add about three
tablespoons of flour and stir that in
now add two cups of chicken stock about
two cups of hominy corn that was soaked
overnight and a 14-ounce can of
fire-roasted tomatoes that are crushed
or any tomatoes if you can't find fire
roasted ones cover and let this cook in
an oven heated to about 300 degrees for
about four hours or until the corn has
puffed up like dumplings and the pork
shreds apart easily when it's done add a
little fresh lime juice some brown sugar
salt and pepper now you can top this
with anything you like it's
traditionally served with tortillas
avocados radishes a whole smorgasbord
know that they'd say that a whole
smorgasbord of sides I'm going to top
mine with cotija cheese if you can't get
your hands on dried honey you can
certainly use canned hominy but you can
even use regular corn either way this is
gonna be a really delicious dish I hope
you try it and let me know what you
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you